Shavkat Mirziyoyev has said he intends to largely follow the political course of his predecessor.
Photograph: Valery Sharifulin/Tass

Uzbekistan’s interim leader, Shavkat Mirziyoyev, has won a crushing presidential election victory to succeed the late Islam Karimov, official results show.

The central election commission said Mirziyoyev secured 88.6% of Sunday’s vote, according to a preliminary count, while western monitors reported signs of fraud.

One election monitor, the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR), said the election underscored “the need for comprehensive reforms” in Uzbekistan, where Karimov had extended his power for years in a series of votes denounced as undemocratic by western governments and international observers.

It noted that “while the election administration took measures to enhance the transparency of its work and the proper conduct of the election”, the limits on fundamental freedoms led to a campaign “devoid of genuine competition”, the ODIHR, which conducted an election monitoring mission in Uzbekistan, said in a statement.

ODIHR observers also said that Uzbek “media covered the election in a highly restrictive and controlled environment, and the state-defined narrative did not provide voters the opportunity to hear alternative viewpoints.”

None of the six previous post-Soviet elections observed in Uzbekistan by ODHIR monitors were deemed democratic and fair.

In a speech on his first day as acting president, he said Uzbekistan would continue the policy of not joining any international military alliances and not hosting any foreign military bases, along with not stationing its troops abroad.

Uzbekistan, a major grower of cotton and a producer of natural gas, borders Afghanistan and lies in a strategic region where Russia, China, and the west vie for influence. It is a member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, which includes Russia and China, but pulled out of the Russia-dominated Collective Security Treaty Organisation for the second time in 2012.

Under Karimov, the predominantly Muslim country’s staunchly secular government appeared eager to suppress any signs of what it saw as Islamic militancy, and policies in that area will be watched for any evidence of a shift.

In a speech in September, Mirziyoyev also said that strengthening ties with neighbouring central Asian states was “the main priority” for Uzbekistan’s foreign policy – and has won praise for apparent steps in that direction.

Karimov, who became Uzbekistan’s Communist party chief in 1989 and ruled as president after the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, tolerated little dissent and eliminated almost all political opposition within the nation of about 30 million.